From Such Great Heights
by J-to-the-Essica
Summary: SamDaniel. Written for the sd ficathon over at livejournal.


-1Disclaimer: So. Not. Mine.

Thanks: Sidalicious, who rocks my world with her sweet beta skills.

Note: Title taken from an Iron and Wine song by the same name.

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She has pink toenails, which surprises him more than the fact that she'd called him 'Sir' when he slid into her slick body hours earlier. Nine years between them, eight if you count his ascension (they never do), and he had no idea that the polished leather of Sam's combat boots hid ten perfect toes painted a delicate shade of cotton candy. She's dozing now, curled against him with her knee drawn up against his hip, and he plants a hand in her shaggy hair, tugging playfully.

"You need a haircut, Colonel."

"Mmm," she answers ambiguously, opening her eyes just a fraction to peer at him. "Area 51's a little less severe than the SGC."

He tenses at the mention of her absence the way he's done since she boarded the transport to Nellis, waving jauntily across the tarmac, bag slung carelessly over her shoulder. He'd stood there watching until she'd disappeared behind the clouds, waiting for her to change her mind because although Sam was great at many things, she'd never been good at leaving.

"What are you thinking?" she asks quietly, smoothing a hand across his forehead.

She's soft and sleepy-eyed and he thinks that maybe he's a little in love with her despite the fact that he kissed her for the first time only two hours ago.

Well, fuck.

"What?" she asks again, a tenuous smile settling across her lips in an adorable mixture of confusion and affection.

He experiences a flash of something he can't quite name and realizes that it is desire only when Sam reaches over him to retrieve the phone that has just begun to vibrate against the nightstand. She smells like sex and lavender and, well, him, and he presses a kiss against the damp column of her throat as she pulls away, answering her cell with a crisp, "Carter."

She moves to the edge of the bed, her naked back turned towards Daniel and sighs softly. There is a pause, a long and painful pause during which he counts the knobs of her vertebrae. He gets to six before she stands and crosses to the other side of the room.

"I tried calling you from the plane, but—,"

She shuts the bathroom door behind her and the rest of the conversation is lost in a rush of water from the sink.

He's only mildly curious about the disembodied voice on the other end of the phone. He thinks it might be Luke, or was it Lance? But anyway, he thinks it might be the lawyer Cassie's told him about in her sporadic e-mails. Daniel knows enough about him to not be jealous because, really, how can you compare elegant candle-lit dinners to harvest festivals on distant planets underneath a sky of shooting stars? He thinks it odd that Sam's never mentioned him in **her **e-mails, but he's not in any position to judge because he never mentioned Vala either. Well, not after the initial rant about another lost opportunity to go to Atlantis. Then again, he and Vala hadn't been dating.

Vala.

Shit.

He's familiar with guilt and self-recrimination, but Jesus, he's never felt this lost before. He'd spent the day playing 'what-if' with Mitchell until Sam had literally dragged the two of them to O'Malley's for steak and beer. The sex had been unintentional, he's sure, because Sam isn't the plotting type, but the kiss she'd given him on his doorstep hadn't been entirely chaste, hadn't been chaste, really, at all.

He's always been aware of Sam's beauty, even when she wasn't, and while he hadn't been drawn to her, exactly, there'd always been this pull between them. He thinks it may have something to do with death and abandonment and not their combined brilliance like everyone else believes, but he's never been able to categorize their relationship because, lingual talents aside, he can't find the words.

The bathroom door opens and Sam's there, naked and glorious and smiling across the darkness. He has to squint to make out her features, but he doesn't want to ruin the moment by putting on his glasses. He likes her half-blurred and distorted, like a photograph taken from a distance.

"Work?"

"Nope," she answers succinctly, moving to the bed and straddling him with a grace he's always imagined, but never witnessed.

Before he can question her further, her mouth covers his, stealing his words. He doesn't mind.

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"I wish I'd been nicer to her."

Daniel looks up from his report to find Sam standing in the doorway, head cocked slightly to the side and worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. He doesn't want to talk about Vala because Sam has been avoiding him for days and they both know any minute she could be called back to Nevada.

"The thing is, I came back and you and Teal'c and Mitchell and Vala were a team and I felt so out of place and, I don't know, threatened maybe, because you'd all moved on and I was stuck in the desert making bombs, for chrissake."

He's not angry, not really, but he's also not going to let her re-write history. "You requested a transfer, Sam."

"I requested a transfer, _Daniel_, because I didn't want to get left behind."

"Ah. Good reason," he returns sarcastically.

"Fuck you."

He blinks and she's gone and, three hours later, he's still not entirely sure what happened in his office. He can count on one hand the number of times he and Sam have ever exchanged hard words and he feels strangely un-tethered.

Damn her.

Damn her for leaving, and damn her for coming back. But most of all, damn her for those small, soft sounds she'd made in the back of her throat when she'd moved over him.

He is so screwed.

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When the phone call comes, it isn't entirely unexpected, but he's still caught off-guard.

"What the hell is going on in that mountain?"

"Uh, hi, Jack, how are you?"

"Yeah, yeah. Life's great," Jack says dismissively. "Now, care to tell me why Carter's chomping at the bit to get back to Area 51?"

"She called you?" Daniel asks incredulously.

"It's Carter, Daniel, of course she didn't call me. She, in fact, sent an e-mail, polite and subtle, but pointed, if you know what I mean."

"Pointed?"

"I don't understand half of what she wrote…she kept talking about her experiments at Nellis using ten syllable words. I need you to level with me here, is Hank giving her a hard time?"

"What? No, I mean, I don't think so."

"Either he is or he isn't, Daniel. Which is it?"

Daniel fights the urge to sigh. He'd forgotten just how absolute things in Jack's mind were.

"No, everything's fine."

"You're sure? Because you know she wouldn't tell me if--,"

"Jack! It's fine. They're fine. We're all fine."

"No need to get snippy."

This time the sigh is unstoppable and Daniel pinches the bridge of his nose to ward off the migraine he can feel creeping on.

"Look, I'm sorry…it's been a little stressful here lately."

Jack clears his throat and Daniel knows he's not entirely comfortable with the veiled reference to Vala.

"Yes, well, um, are you, you know, doing ok?"

Daniel's answering laugh is bitter and maybe just a little broken. "I'm great."

"Daniel--,"

"It's fine, Jack, and wow, would you look at the time! I've got a mountain of paperwork and I'm sure you do, too."

"All right…we don't have to do the whole sensitive friend thing because we both know I'm crap at it, but seriously, Daniel, I need Carter at the SGC."

I do, too, he agrees silently. "I know."

"So, fix it."

"What?"

"Whatever's going on with Carter."

"What makes you think--,"

"Gotta go. Bye."

Daniel curses at the dial tone and slams the phone back into the receiver with slightly more force than is strictly necessary.

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"I can't stop thinking about you," she says when he opens the door to his apartment. "I can't stop thinking about you and I was hoping we could talk."

Her eyes are shiny and luminous against the backdrop of the streetlights, and Daniel feels that familiar, persistent tug towards her.

He blinks a few times before smiling softly. "It's two a.m.," he says even as he ushers her inside, locking the door behind her.

He takes in her disheveled hair and the way she hugs her motorcycle helmet to her chest like a talisman. His palm burns with longing and he wants so desperately to touch her, but he's afraid she'll shy away and, God, he feels so vulnerable and wounded right now that her rejection would destroy him.

"I'm sorry, Daniel."

He doesn't like the way she can't quite meet his eyes, thinks that maybe she is trying to end this, end them, and anger so intense it borders on rage rushes through him. He's not going to make this easy on her.

"Are you still in love with Jack?"

He feels some satisfaction that she's knocked sideways by the question because she finally meets his gaze and he's absurdly proud that he doesn't so much as flinch when she nods her head.

"Yes."

He dies just a little inside and hope leaves his body in a rush so swift, his legs are shaky. "You've been out of the same chain-of-command for months now. There's nothing stopping you from being together," he says hollowly.

"We tried."

Disbelief and betrayal war for dominance across his face and he expels a violent breath. "I need to sit down." She follows him into the living room, but keeps a respectable distance when he collapses on the couch. "Jesus."

"We spent one weekend together." She laughs then, but it sounds more like a choked sob. "Two days was all it took before we realized that we'd end up destroying each other. Eight years of the most intense feelings I'd ever experienced and…" she trails off kneels in front of him. "I'm not going to apologize for loving Jack, but the thing is, Daniel, I love you, too."

He looks up and her eyes are as open and sincere as he's ever seen. "I think I've loved you for a long time, but when we were standing on your porch the other night, and you were beating yourself up…" she sighs and slides their palms together and Daniel just wants to die (again) because he can't lose her, too. "I don't want to hurt you."

He closes the distance between them and captures her lips in a kiss that says everything he can't. Her answering whimper is the most exquisite sound he's ever heard and when he pulls away, her tender smile is almost his undoing.

"You're being reassigned to SG-1."

"I know."

"I'm not in the military, but the frat regs still apply."

Her smile wavers. "If you don't want me, don't want the complications and the baggage, I'll walk away and we won't ever speak of it again. But, Daniel, I'm not going to waste another eight years of my life waiting for **this** to be ok with the Air Force."

Her eyes search his, and when he doesn't answer, she takes his silence as rejection. Disappointment and hurt flash briefly across her face, but she squeezes his knee briefly before standing up. "I'll, uh, I'll see you tomorrow."

He catches her hand as she turns away and suddenly it's like everything makes sense. "Wait, don't go."

She doesn't.

END


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